


hide me from the burning sun

by nightskywithrainbows



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Angst and Feels, Black Roses, Demeter is a control freak, F/M, Hades and Persephone in Love, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Kind of Dark! Persephone, On Hiatus, Persephone Goes Willingly With Hades (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Possible smut, Rating May Change, Romance, Zeus and Poseidon suck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightskywithrainbows/pseuds/nightskywithrainbows
Summary: Hades knows. He knows pain and powerlessness and the knowledge thatyou will never be free. So when he found my message- a black rose, beautiful flower, embodiment of spring, poisoned by my pain and sent beneath the earth- he listened. He listened and followed it up, and he came to me and stole me away, down below the rocks, where the sun couldn't burn me with its rays.Or: My take on the myth of Hades and Persephone~TEMPORARILY ABANDONED. MAY OR MAY NOT BE CONTINUED~
Relationships: Hades/Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	1. And so I sent my message

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> revised 10/19

When I sent my message- a hope I couldn’t verbalize before- it flew away on wings. I carved my desperation into the flowers I was known for. I took a rose, and colored it with pain and hopelessness, the absence of true life- and it bloomed black, shot through with deep purple, and I buried it beneath the soil. I sent it down, through the rocks, through the earth, to the only other door that wasn’t chained shut. I buried a rose, black as night, streaked with purple painful hope. I sent it down to the gates of the underworld. 

I sent it not above, not to the diamond palace up among the clouds, for the inhabitants were too aloof to “interfere.” Zeus causes a problem, then ascends to his throne- he won’t interfere. He hid my mother, once, as he’d hidden so many mortals before. I am his shame, his flower, his sweet little daughter protected within an ever sunny meadow. I’ve seen only glimpses of a life beyond- what I wouldn’t give to be somewhere far away from here, far away from him, far away from the burning sun. 

I sent it not across the sea, not into the seashell castle beneath the waves, for the inhabitants choose to drown themselves in their own lives, never “interfere.” Poseidon chose the ocean, chose his throne, and left us far behind. He comes above for a mortal or two, then sinks back down beneath the waves. 

So when I sent my message, I sent it down below, underneath the rock. I sent it into the onyx fortress below the earth, for the inhabitant who is more of a complexity, who interferes then is stabbed back and tries to interfere again, and every stab is poison, and every word is hell. Hades lived in undeserved exile, villainized and evicted from his throne amongst the gods. Hades doesn’t have a throne above, doesn’t have a throne across, he isolates beneath the rock and waits for us to come to him. 

And for those mortals who will enter his realm, it’s easy. Death is a fact of life for them, a simple inevitability. When Thanatos comes for them, with all he brings, they rage and cry, but still they go. They’ll always go. Death is a fact of life, Hades is a fact of life. He is a promise of being beyond living, judgement beyond action, a home when home won’t have you anymore. 

I couldn’t come to him, trapped in the land, between where the sea meets the sky. I can’t go up, can’t go across- I need someone to bring me down. I need someone to bring me down, down down- away! Finally, blissfully away! What will it be to be _away,_ gone away from the flowers and the mother and the sky and the burning sun that seems to mock me? 

What will I feel? When I break beneath the rocks, what can I feel? What will life be when there will be no mother to chase away the tempting demons? When there is no father who pretends he doesn’t see?

Beneath the earth, beyond the rocks, far away from the burning sun. 

Maybe I’ll be free, and maybe I’ll be chained tighter than before, but it will be _different._ No father or mother or companions who don’t seem to hear my pain, see my screams. It will be different. If it’s a hell I’m sending a plea to, then at least it’s a hell of my _choice._


	2. Breathe deeply in the scent of death

I was standing in a meadow, gathering flowers once again. I was standing there, and simply thinking, staring at the petals. Each one is a delicacy, each one is so fragile. Each is a moment of fleeting beauty, pretty and fragrant and fragile and soon to be dead if I were to pluck it. 

I pluck it. 

I’m sitting in a meadow, surrounded by the blossoms. Hold a flower, pluck each petal- _“he will come, he will not, he will come, he will not, he will come, he will not, he will come-”_

And in the longest second, the earth rumbled and the rocks shifted, and up he came. 

He rode a chariot as black as night, driven by a skeletal horse shrouded in a scent of death, of rotting flesh, of corrupted fragrance. 

I breathe deeply in. 

And smile. 

He advances towards me. I can’t read the expression beneath his iron helm. He’s coming, faster and faster and I delight in this fear. He could do absolutely anything, and my mother is not here. 

He swoops me up, quick and smooth and painful, and I revel in the jerk of my arm, and the pain in my chest as he holds me tight to him and we descend beneath the ground. 

The rocks rise up above me, and the last thing that I see is a petal. 

It’s pink. 

Soft and pink, and as the rocks close above us, it suddenly shivers and wilts and turns to grey to black to dust. 

I watch it float away on my breath of air, and I breathe in deep the scent of death, and I feel not at home, not quite safe, but I am here and I wouldn’t go back for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: these chapters are under review. While this story is planned out and i have a bit pre written, it is in no way finished. I may come back and redo these chapters, although the essence will stay the same :)


	3. Power in powerlessnes

Hades lives in a life beyond luxury, beyond riches. He lives in a palace built with souls, shot through with veins of priceless diamonds. The doors are wide and deceptively open, the archways lined with the worst of the Fields of Asphodel- the ones who have fully given up themselves and their lives and their purpose. All they know is what’s here and now, they’ve forgotten what it is to feel. It's a strange test, to be able to pass beneath when the souls whisper, _“Why are you here? Can you really know? Can you remember? Can you feel?”_ And if you are to pass, if you are to step beneath the archway, not quite black as night- is that truly what you want? It’s a test, a demanding measure. It demands that you know who you are, know your purpose. To enter the entrance, you have to _want_ it, lest you forget your purpose and yourself and your life and become another shrouded faceless being, floating in the Fields of Asphodel. 

He leaves his carriage before the entrance hall, releases his steeds, and waves his carriage away into whatever nether awaits it. I watch as it disintegrates to nothing, and I’m struck by his sheer control. He is king here, commanding souls and matter and it is _intoxicating_ to be in his presence. He takes my hand, and leads me through the archway, and for the first time in my life I feel alive. I feel alive and here and everything I see looks as if it’s all the more clear for being shrouded in shadow. I was blinded by the burning sun, and in its absence everything is clear, and all of me is here, and I feel _alive._

We walk through the throne room- a place designed to inspire fear. It’s designed with terror in mind, and every corner manages to convey a message. The room itself screams at you. Every bit is carefully positioned to place Hades at the top, and you beneath his foot. It almost seems to speak. _“You are not king here,”_ it says. _“You have no power,”_ it says. _“You have no control here,”_ it says, and then it laughs. It says this all in its silence, and as we draw to a stop before the throne I look to Hades’ face, still clad in his iron helm, and I realize- this is him. He designed this, he decorated this with his pain. He drew up plans from desperations of petty vengeance, he colored it with the maddening knowledge that _things will never change._ Hades, like me, knows this to be true. The sun will rise and fall and Helios will drive his warmth across the sky. Gaea will slumber and Zeus will storm and Poseidon will alternate between gentle waves and tsunamis that kill. And through it all, Hades will be here, in his home of a prison, in his palace of death. Hades is a constant much like the others- he is an inevitability. This throne room is an ode to Hades, tale of his existence- it belies his power in his powerlessness. 

I revel in it. Because I feel this, I feel so at home here. I feel so at home, and if I were to cry now I would sob tears of black, and they would color my face for the world to see. For this is me too, this is my pain and powerlessness and hopelessness. This is my desire to cause pain for those who wronged me, to brand upon their skin for all to see my torture. I did nothing wrong. I was born and I lived, and I lived in my own personal hell, and now I’ll make a home for me in your worst nightmares. For Hades knows pain, he knows hopelessness, he knows that no matter your circumstance _your trauma is valid. Your pain is valid._ It is valid and here and real and it _burns_ in its iciness. 

I lived a perfect life, but a tiger can only live so long in a cage. If you bind a falcon tight, and sing it words of honeyed poison, eventually it will wither. It will wither like a flower, lose its strength and die. Break me, shape me, but you cannot control me. Such an innocent rebellion- a small black rose. And look what it’s done. It’s brought me here, here with him, the only one I could think of who wouldn’t slam the door in my face. 

I remember his story. Hades did nothing wrong. He was born and he lived and through a twist of fate, roll of the dice, he was sentenced here. Zeus took the sky, and Poseidon the sea, and Hades was cast to the underworld. He was outlawed to the world’s worst nightmare, and now he’s made a home here. He has made his home here in his pain. Here, he takes control. Here, he is the ultimate power within his powerlessness. 

And if he chooses to make this hell _his-_ to punish those who wrong innocents, to reward those who do good by them, then that is his choice. That is his control. He controls who will spend their eternity paying for the sins of life, he designs personalized pain in the Fields of Punishment, he hurts those who hurt others. He can hurt the murderers and torturers and abusers and captors and kidnappers and killers and rapists and even absentee fathers and neglectful controlling mothers- he can hurt them all, like they hurt others. 

I wonder, does he think of Zeus and Poseidon and Demeter and all his other siblings as he torments those scum of the earth? Does he wish he could scour their spirits and chain them to a pyre as he does to those foolish mortals?

I would. 

In this throne room, monument to his might, he is king.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. The inspiration for this fic was really brief, so it's going to be on hiatus for a while. My other WIP (red like the sunset) is taking up a lot of my time, and my sleep deprived self does not have the mental/emotional capacity to work on this. sorry to disappoint anyone who is following. If you did enjoy it, please please let me know. 
> 
> This chapter hasn't been excessively edited- i kinda did the bare minimum before the lack of motivation/stress/exhaustion set in. I hope you enjoy this little peek into hades' mind. 
> 
> Again, if you liked this story please let me know in the comments! I'm more than happy to discuss parts of it as well. Have a great day my readers :)

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i've always loved greek mythology, so I figured i should write my take on this myth. I hope you all enjoy, and please leave a kudos/comment if you did. 
> 
> this should be updated every day or so. i have a few prewritten, so no need to worry about falling behind for a while :)


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